body like a back road (i know every curve like the back of my hand)
by wrappedinrosegold
Summary: He now knew the intimacy that he and Michonne were capable of together with just a touch, and how much more his eager hands had to discover in those private moments, locked away in what had become their bedroom. One shot set somewhere after 6x10 and before 6x16, companion piece of sorts to my story 'just put your skin, baby, on my skin'. Title from Sam Hunt's song of the same name.


Rick had thought his hands had experienced Michonne's body in every way possible after all this time.

His hand had brushed against hers as he had given her a bag full of guns, the skin of her palm deceptively soft in contrast with the way she had effortlessly slung the bag over her the defined muscles of her shoulder, even as she had helped his son carry a crib for his baby daughter through booby-trapped streets in a forbidding town he and his family had once called home.

He had placed his fingers on her arm in an effort to make a connection with her, to reassure both Michonne and himself that standing in the middle of a desolate Virginia town wasn't it for them, to ground himself in the touch of her skin caked with the road and the many hours of travel they had undertaken after leaving Georgia, and to try and give her a sense of comfort and strength that she had so often unwittingly given to him in the wake of Lori's death and the fall of the prison.

He had wrapped his arms around her and his hands had clutched the back of her shirt in what may have been desperation, relief, or both, when she had come to the door of the house he was staying in with Carl, shocked, but not surprised, at how his arms and his embrace could so easily engulf a woman that was larger than life in both mind and in her physical presence when her katana was in her hands and her eyes were sharp with a laser focus and determination in service to the protection of their family.

He had placed the safety of his daughter, and his daughter herself, literally and figuratively in her hands, and each time he had never hesitated as her hands found his in the process and gave his fingers a gentle squeeze, followed by a soft caress of Judith's cheek with those same fingers, the touch of a mother, the touch of the only mother that Judith would remember.

His hands had roughly passed over her waist and the curve of her leg as he had ascertained that she had been shot, and not bitten when she had first come upon the gates of the prison, and his fingers had pressed purposefully and brutally into that same gunshot wound…

…The gunshot wound that had left a scar that he would never be able to trace tenderly enough, touch carefully enough with his lips and with his traitorous fingers in an effort to apologize for what he had done long after the fact.

But as much as Rick had thought he had memorized Michonne with his hands over so many months together in Georgia, on the road, and now in the closest thing they had to a home in Alexandria, in the wake of the new, exciting, physical aspects of their relationship, he now knew the intimacy that he and Michonne were capable of together with just a touch, and how much more his eager hands had to discover in those private moments, locked away in what had become their bedroom.

He learned the exact pressure to apply to the sore, rippling muscles of her back and shoulders so that her body was practically melting with relaxation underneath his fingertips, a rare sight in a world where they lived on edge, taut with anticipation and ready to do battle at any given moment.

He learned how to rub the arches of her foot with slow, deliberate circles of his calloused thumbs so that her foot flexed underneath him in delight against the soreness and the tiring work that the day had wrought.

He learned that when he pulled her hair just so, when he tangled his fingers in the thick mass to bring her closer to him, that the hiss of pain it elicited was just a hint of the agonizing, delicious pressure building slowly inside of her, a pressure only he could relieve.

He learned that Michonne's hips fit his palms as if they were made just so he could rest his hands there, so he could slide his hands down and over her backside, ebbing and flowing with her curves and edges as if his body had known hers from the beginning, and would know it right up until whatever end the world had in store for him.

He learned that she liked when his hands would claim said backside with a firm slap that left a handprint in its wake, a distinct but discreet mark that only they would know was there.

He learned that her thighs could take his tight, hungry grip and that they would flex eagerly in response to when his impatient hands grabbed them from underneath and spread them apart as far as they would go.

He learned just how to lazily roll her nipples between his thumb and middle and forefinger so that her head hit the headboard in ecstasy, begging him for more and yet moaning for him to slow down so that she could hold onto the pleasure he was giving.

He learned the patterns that made her gasp, made her throb, made her wet underneath his insouciant fingers, how she would open up to him so eagerly when he slid one, two, three, four fingers inside until his forearm began to cramp and her hips were coming off of the bed, the wall, the door, any flat surface that would sustain them in those moments where they needed one another so fervently.

Rick learned that he could close his eyes and his hands could delicately trace every inch of Michonne's rich, soft skin, that he had committed every plane and hill and valley of her body to memory, that he now knew the placements and the stories of almost all of the scars that he had discovered in his many explorations of her, and that those scars were now as much a part of his skin as hers, and did nothing but add to the addiction that he had to mapping out the stories they were creating together with each pass of his palm.

"You're getting handsy, Sheriff." Michonne's breath tickled his skin and made him shiver as she placed kisses on the hollow of his neck.

"You're one to talk when you're bathing me with your tongue, Officer." Rick's voice was teasing even as he grunted as she hit a particularly sensitive spot on his neck with her mouth. "Tell me. Where's this one from?"

"From when I fell after I got off my horse. The outbreak at the prison." Michonne trembled underneath him slightly, though whether it was from his hands trailing up from her lower leg to the inside of her thigh or the memory of the illness that had diminished their group so swiftly and harshly, he wasn't sure.

Her leg wrapped around his hip almost of its own volition, and he rested his hand comfortably on the outside of her thigh, enjoying the moment and holding onto this memory of her with his hands and with his mind, of how Michonne looked underneath him; naked, vulnerable, sated, happy…free.

It was as if she could read his mind and she pulled him up to meet her lips by the curls of his hair, her body melding into his. "Mmm."

Rick responded to her kiss with a gentle urgency, slowly bringing her to that point where they were craving one another again, but as soon as he had started it, he pulled away and worked his way to hands had left off, carefully marking her with light caresses of his fingers, kisses and gentle bites so they could relish in the moment, away from the events of the day and this life and embracing finally being alone together, and so he could make his way to the long, thin scar that had he had never asked about, that was obvious in its presence when they were in close proximity like this, and in the unspoken implications he had never pushed to know, up until now.

"What about this one?" His hand traced her lower abdomen reverently, almost tentatively, unsure as to whether or not she would answer, and as to whether this was too soon, or if he should have asked long ago.

He could feel Michonne freeze momentarily, both in motion and in the way the air felt cooler around them, as if she was reliving the occasion that had caused that particular mark on her body, on her mind, on the very center of her being.

Her silence spoke volumes and he wouldn't press, not now, but merely worked his way up until he finally met her lips again, disavowing the tension that had stiffened her body and allowing her to fall into him again, his hands softly holding her face close to his.

He had learned how to soften the set of her jaw with a brush of his thumb, how to caress her cheekbones so that the tears that spilled onto them were wiped away in between gentle strokes, how when he traced the outline of her lips in between kisses that her full mouth would press against his fingers, brushing over his knuckles lightly.

He had learned that when he held her face like this, cradled in his too large hands that he swore would never, ever hurt her again, that she looked like she felt safe and content.

And in that moment, this moment, as he held her, as her face looked up into his as if they were the only two people left on this earth, he learned with a suddenness that made his head spin and his breath stop, that he was in love with this woman.

The only thing that could have pulled him from the life altering epiphany that he somehow felt that he had already known was the sound of her faint, but determined voice.

"His name was Andre."

Rick hoped his face reflected all of the love that he felt for Michonne coursing in his veins as he focused on her, as she finally began to speak, as his left hand slipped from her face only to blindly find her smaller hand, so their fingers were inextricably, comfortingly and permanently linked, and their palms firmly pressed together.


End file.
